Former Blizzard Executive Believes e-Sports Can be in the Olympics

Former Blizzard chief creative officer Rob Pardo believes that e-Sports can definitely make a home for itself in the Olympics.

Speaking in a recent BBC interview, Pardo said that the lightning reflexes, quick decision making and a very competitive bag of skills makes professional gamers a part of Olympics.

“There’s a very good argument for e-sports being in the Olympics,” he said. “I think the way that you look at eSports is that it’s a very competitive skillset and you look at these professional gamers and the reflexes are lightning quick and they’re having to make very quick decisions on the fly.”

He noted that unlike other conventional sports, indulging e-Sports into the Olympics will require a lot more work.

Following the global success of League of Legends, many have been debating how e-Sports can never be part of the Olympics, no matter how big and popular its professional scene becomes.

Earlier this year, the president of ESPN John Skipper said that e-Sports is not a sports – “it’s a competition”.

“If you want to define sport as something that takes a lot of physical exertion, then it’s hard to argue that video games should be a sport, but at the same time, when I’m looking at things that are already in the Olympics, I start questioning the definition,” he said.